Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Two Party system
This morning NPR was touting third party candidates for President. Couple of guys whose names are new to me, couple of parties, Libertarian, Green. Then they segued into a pro third party pitch, and denounced various state laws making it hard for poor old third parties to get on the ballot. Sounded dreadful.
In real life, the two party system is a good thing that makes legislation possible. In a two party system, if you have the votes, you can pass your legislation. Once we let more parties into the game it becomes difficult to impossible to get anything done. On any political issue there are always six of seven different courses of action. If you have six or seven parties, each one of them will pick one of the possible courses of action, but none of the parties will have the votes to push it thru. France, going all the way back to the Third Republic, worked like this. The French had half a dozen parties, all going there own way, and they could never get anything done. This pattern of French politics persists to this day. It brought France invasion and defeat in 1940, Diem Bien Foo, the Algerian civil war, and overall weakness and confusion for nearly a century.
In a two party system, the six or seven courses of action get whittled down to two, one for each party, by internal party negotiations and log rolling. Then the party with the votes gets it's program passed. With only two partie, one of 'em will have the votes to pass its legislation. If, like today, the country is evenly split on a lot of issues, nothing happens, neither party has the votes. When the country is evenly split, it's probably best not to do anything.
And, consider this. The last third party candidate to win the presidency was Abraham Lincoln and that was a long time ago. To my way of thinking, casting your vote for a third party candidate is same as throwing it away, or not voting at all.
In real life, the two party system is a good thing that makes legislation possible. In a two party system, if you have the votes, you can pass your legislation. Once we let more parties into the game it becomes difficult to impossible to get anything done. On any political issue there are always six of seven different courses of action. If you have six or seven parties, each one of them will pick one of the possible courses of action, but none of the parties will have the votes to push it thru. France, going all the way back to the Third Republic, worked like this. The French had half a dozen parties, all going there own way, and they could never get anything done. This pattern of French politics persists to this day. It brought France invasion and defeat in 1940, Diem Bien Foo, the Algerian civil war, and overall weakness and confusion for nearly a century.
In a two party system, the six or seven courses of action get whittled down to two, one for each party, by internal party negotiations and log rolling. Then the party with the votes gets it's program passed. With only two partie, one of 'em will have the votes to pass its legislation. If, like today, the country is evenly split on a lot of issues, nothing happens, neither party has the votes. When the country is evenly split, it's probably best not to do anything.
And, consider this. The last third party candidate to win the presidency was Abraham Lincoln and that was a long time ago. To my way of thinking, casting your vote for a third party candidate is same as throwing it away, or not voting at all.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
We need some Cruel and Unusual Punishments
For robo callers who ring my phone and don't answer when I pick up.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Military in Politics???
I am hearing some chat on TV about how retired military officers should not engage in politics. I beg to differ. Once retired, a military officer is just an American citizen, with all the rights and privileges thereto, such as shooting his mouth off in public, or even at the Democratic convention.
Active duty military is another kettle of fish. On active duty an officer commands the armed forces of the United States, under the direction of the commander in chief (the president). On active duty, criticizing the political leadership is criticizing your military superior, a big no-no, and a court martial offense in the US armed forces.
But after retirement, a military officers is just another civilian, and if he wants to politick, that is his right and privilege. General Washington, General Jackson, General Grant, and General Eisenhower all made first class presidents. In fact I'd be happy to trade our current crop of presidential candidates for any one of them. Too bad they are all dead.
Active duty military is another kettle of fish. On active duty an officer commands the armed forces of the United States, under the direction of the commander in chief (the president). On active duty, criticizing the political leadership is criticizing your military superior, a big no-no, and a court martial offense in the US armed forces.
But after retirement, a military officers is just another civilian, and if he wants to politick, that is his right and privilege. General Washington, General Jackson, General Grant, and General Eisenhower all made first class presidents. In fact I'd be happy to trade our current crop of presidential candidates for any one of them. Too bad they are all dead.
Zitka in Florida
According to the TV newsies, a very small area in Florida, maybe a square mile, north of Miami is the cause.
You would think a few hundred gallons of DDT, or whatever less effective insecticide the greenies allow us to use would solve the problem in a day or two. TV newsies aren't saying anything about spraying the skeeters. Maybe they haven't thought of it, maybe spome greenie regulation prevents it, who knows. But a one square mile pest hole is treatable. Best to treat is now, before it spreads.
You would think a few hundred gallons of DDT, or whatever less effective insecticide the greenies allow us to use would solve the problem in a day or two. TV newsies aren't saying anything about spraying the skeeters. Maybe they haven't thought of it, maybe spome greenie regulation prevents it, who knows. But a one square mile pest hole is treatable. Best to treat is now, before it spreads.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Touristing to Portsmouth NH
Haven't been to Portsmouth in fifteen years or more. And then only to Strawberrie Banke, a historical village setting. I needed to buy a few new clothes, the khaki's and sports shirts bought at Good Will Industries years ago are wearing out, and Good Will Industries has downgraded itself below my fairly low standards. Portsmouth has down some good work on reviving the down town into a tourist trap. Lotta nice side walk eateries. They had plenty of tourists hiking around the down town. Parking is tight on a Saturday, I finally had to use my credit card to pay off a parking meter at $1.75 an hour. Google maps showed nearly a dozen men's clothing stores all on a three block run of Congress St. It must have been a bad year for men's clothing. Only two of the stores that showed on Google maps were still there. One was a unisex place (not my style ) and the other was a women's clothing place, (also not my style).
Infrastructure was good. I drove down on secondary roads, and they were all in good shape, fresh black asphalt, easy curves, generous sight lines, broad shoulders. Makes me think the infrastructure catastrophe is limited to New York State. Real states like NH are keeping their roads in good shape.
And I'm glad I retired in upstate NH where the traffic is light. Traffic around Manchester was thick. There was some kinda hangup in Concord that had southbound traffic on 193 backded up to Boscawen by 2 PM. Which is early for people to start for home after a weekend in upstate NH. That one made in onto the air on WBZ.
Infrastructure was good. I drove down on secondary roads, and they were all in good shape, fresh black asphalt, easy curves, generous sight lines, broad shoulders. Makes me think the infrastructure catastrophe is limited to New York State. Real states like NH are keeping their roads in good shape.
And I'm glad I retired in upstate NH where the traffic is light. Traffic around Manchester was thick. There was some kinda hangup in Concord that had southbound traffic on 193 backded up to Boscawen by 2 PM. Which is early for people to start for home after a weekend in upstate NH. That one made in onto the air on WBZ.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Wanna bet hacked DNC computers were running Windows?
Windows, Bill Gate's gift to civilization, is like Swiss cheese. It's got so many holes that high school kids can hack into it. Far as I am concerned, running Windows is hanging a hack me sign on your fanny.
If you care about security, don't run Windows. Run Linux or Unix or Macintosh. They are all a hundred times more secure than any flavor of Windows.
If you care about security, don't run Windows. Run Linux or Unix or Macintosh. They are all a hundred times more secure than any flavor of Windows.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Debating WWII grand strategy
Nice thick new book, 2016, entitled Commander in Chief, FDR's battle with Churchill. Good photo of FDR on the dust jacket. To read the book, you would think Roosevelt and Churchill spent the entire war squabbling over strategy.
From the get go, the Americans realized that the only way to defeat Germany was to land a huge army, on European soil, as close to Germany as possible, defeat the large and effective German army, drive for Berlin, and hang Hitler. This kind of American thinking goes back to US Grant and the Civil War. Grant understood that the North had vastly greater reserves of manpower (and everything else that counted) than the South. Once installed as commander in chief, Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to march on Richmond, the southern capital. Robert E. Lee put up a stout defense. But after each bloody battle, Grant ordered his men forward and called up reinforcements. Grant knew he could absorb horrendous casualties and still beat Lee and win the war. It wasn't elegant, but it did work.
So the American thinking ran toward, "if you run into an obstacle, get a bigger hammer." And starting a few days after Pearl Harbor, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff became set upon the notion of a second front. They even talked about launching the second front in 1942. And in 1943. They were dead set against peripheral operations that drained men and material away from the main objective. Things finally came together in 1944 at D-day. In short it took two and a half years of preparation to build up the enormous force that triumphed in Normandy.
The British, who had suffered thru four years of trench warfare on the Western front, suffered the Germans to drive them into the sea at Dunkirk, and watched the Germans massacre the experimental raid on Dieppe, were not as sanguine as the Americans. Churchill himself had commanded a regiment on the Western front, he knew how bad that sort of fighting could be. Churchill was an imaginative guy, and he did a lot of thinking about ways to fight the Germans short of frontal attack across the Channel. He came up with a bunch of them. North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Greece were all Churchill ideas. I daresay there were others that didn't make the history books.
In 1942, it was clear to Churchill, and he made it clear to Roosevelt who was inclined to listen to Churchill, that the Allies needed to do something against the Germans that year. It would have been politically impossible to spend the next two and a half years building up to D-day and not fighting the Germans anywhere. And, the newly raised American divisions were green as grass, they needed some actual combat experience to become effective against the Germans. Churchill proposed the Americans land an army in North Africa that year, drive east toward Montgomery's 8th Army, and crush the Axis forces between them. In this case, Roosevelt had to go against the strong opposition of General Marshall, Admiral King and the US joint chiefs. He did it, issued them a direct order, something Roosevelt seldom did. And it worked. The Germans were cornered in Tunisia, forced to surrender, and the Allies took as many prisoners of war as the Russians took at Stalingrad some weeks before.
This smashing success made the British even more reluctant to bet everything on D-day. For the rest of the war, conference after conference was held, with the British pushing for more peripheral operations and the Americans pressing for "do D-day now". The Americans finally got their way, and D-day happened on the 6th of June 1944. And it worked.
Nigel Hamilton goes over all of this in exhaustive detail. He paints it as a struggle between Roosevelt and Churchill, and makes it sound so bitter that you wonder how the Alliance stayed together. And he makes it sound like a whole new interpretation of history, which it isn't. The debates between the British and the Americans are well documented and part of the generally accepted and understood history of WWII.
From the get go, the Americans realized that the only way to defeat Germany was to land a huge army, on European soil, as close to Germany as possible, defeat the large and effective German army, drive for Berlin, and hang Hitler. This kind of American thinking goes back to US Grant and the Civil War. Grant understood that the North had vastly greater reserves of manpower (and everything else that counted) than the South. Once installed as commander in chief, Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to march on Richmond, the southern capital. Robert E. Lee put up a stout defense. But after each bloody battle, Grant ordered his men forward and called up reinforcements. Grant knew he could absorb horrendous casualties and still beat Lee and win the war. It wasn't elegant, but it did work.
So the American thinking ran toward, "if you run into an obstacle, get a bigger hammer." And starting a few days after Pearl Harbor, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff became set upon the notion of a second front. They even talked about launching the second front in 1942. And in 1943. They were dead set against peripheral operations that drained men and material away from the main objective. Things finally came together in 1944 at D-day. In short it took two and a half years of preparation to build up the enormous force that triumphed in Normandy.
The British, who had suffered thru four years of trench warfare on the Western front, suffered the Germans to drive them into the sea at Dunkirk, and watched the Germans massacre the experimental raid on Dieppe, were not as sanguine as the Americans. Churchill himself had commanded a regiment on the Western front, he knew how bad that sort of fighting could be. Churchill was an imaginative guy, and he did a lot of thinking about ways to fight the Germans short of frontal attack across the Channel. He came up with a bunch of them. North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Greece were all Churchill ideas. I daresay there were others that didn't make the history books.
In 1942, it was clear to Churchill, and he made it clear to Roosevelt who was inclined to listen to Churchill, that the Allies needed to do something against the Germans that year. It would have been politically impossible to spend the next two and a half years building up to D-day and not fighting the Germans anywhere. And, the newly raised American divisions were green as grass, they needed some actual combat experience to become effective against the Germans. Churchill proposed the Americans land an army in North Africa that year, drive east toward Montgomery's 8th Army, and crush the Axis forces between them. In this case, Roosevelt had to go against the strong opposition of General Marshall, Admiral King and the US joint chiefs. He did it, issued them a direct order, something Roosevelt seldom did. And it worked. The Germans were cornered in Tunisia, forced to surrender, and the Allies took as many prisoners of war as the Russians took at Stalingrad some weeks before.
This smashing success made the British even more reluctant to bet everything on D-day. For the rest of the war, conference after conference was held, with the British pushing for more peripheral operations and the Americans pressing for "do D-day now". The Americans finally got their way, and D-day happened on the 6th of June 1944. And it worked.
Nigel Hamilton goes over all of this in exhaustive detail. He paints it as a struggle between Roosevelt and Churchill, and makes it sound so bitter that you wonder how the Alliance stayed together. And he makes it sound like a whole new interpretation of history, which it isn't. The debates between the British and the Americans are well documented and part of the generally accepted and understood history of WWII.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
The Russians are going, the Russians are going.
The yuge burst of Russian page views has died down. I am back to my usual 70 odd pageviews a day, with the bulk of them from the US. Dunno what happened, but it was a wild ride while it lasted.
Trans Pacific Partnership
Both candidates have done a bit of badmouthing of this deal. This sounds strange coming from The Donald. Republicans are traditionally in favor of free trade. But, since the details of TPP have never appeared in the public press, it's impossible to form an real opinion about it. If it lowers other country's tariffs against American products, it's a good thing. America's tariffs are already pretty low, which accounts for all the Chinese product in Wal Mart, and all those Japanese and Korean cars on American roads. With the exception of sugar, I doubt that American tariffs can be reduced much, I mean you can't go below zero can you?
The scary part is what we don't know. Rumor says the TPP covers a lot more than tariffs. Perhaps equal pay for all countries, or a world wide minimum wage. Patent and copyright protection for 75 years. Fixed exchange rates. World wide safety standards, world wide green house gas regulations, universal freight rates, gun control, universal labor laws.
Since the text is secret, it could be anything. I assume the Obama administration is keeping it secret to damp down opposition. Or, perhaps the newsies are so ignorant of nearly everything, that they don't want to publish it.
Could be anything. But discussion of TPP would be more meaningful if we knew what was in it.
The scary part is what we don't know. Rumor says the TPP covers a lot more than tariffs. Perhaps equal pay for all countries, or a world wide minimum wage. Patent and copyright protection for 75 years. Fixed exchange rates. World wide safety standards, world wide green house gas regulations, universal freight rates, gun control, universal labor laws.
Since the text is secret, it could be anything. I assume the Obama administration is keeping it secret to damp down opposition. Or, perhaps the newsies are so ignorant of nearly everything, that they don't want to publish it.
Could be anything. But discussion of TPP would be more meaningful if we knew what was in it.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Russians hacked the DNC?
I'm hearing on NPR, Fox, and the 'Net a theory that the Russians hacked the DNC emails and released them on Wikileaks to help The Donald.
Why in the world would they do that?
Hillary is a known quantity. She is not very smart, she can be bought, she won't make waves. She has had four years as Secretary of State to demonstrate her incompetence in foreign affairs. If I was Putin, that's exactly the kind of person I would like as president of the only surviving superpower.
Trump on the other hand, might do anything. America is an exceptional country, and with imaginative leadership it can do almost anything. Under mediocre leadership (Hillary) nothing much will happen. But under charismatic leadership America won WWII, developed nuclear weapons, traveled to the Moon, eliminated polio, and gave its people the best standard of living in the world. Under Trump, America could be an irresistible adversary to Russian expansion worldwide. Why risk that? Far better to have a mediocrity who will let things slide as they have been doing.
So I don't believe the Russians wanted to help Trump.
Why in the world would they do that?
Hillary is a known quantity. She is not very smart, she can be bought, she won't make waves. She has had four years as Secretary of State to demonstrate her incompetence in foreign affairs. If I was Putin, that's exactly the kind of person I would like as president of the only surviving superpower.
Trump on the other hand, might do anything. America is an exceptional country, and with imaginative leadership it can do almost anything. Under mediocre leadership (Hillary) nothing much will happen. But under charismatic leadership America won WWII, developed nuclear weapons, traveled to the Moon, eliminated polio, and gave its people the best standard of living in the world. Under Trump, America could be an irresistible adversary to Russian expansion worldwide. Why risk that? Far better to have a mediocrity who will let things slide as they have been doing.
So I don't believe the Russians wanted to help Trump.
Monday, July 25, 2016
You would think they would know that Email is public
Debby Wasserman Schultz and most of the top brass at DNC are dumb enough to put things in email that they would never want to become public. They are too ignorant to know that email ain't private, ain't secure, any thing you put in email can turn up on Wikileaks, or the front page of the newspapers. This has been clear since Ollie North tried to erase his incriminating emails on the Iran Contra affair back in the Reagan administration. In Ollie's case, he deleted his emails all right, but efficient IT people at the While House had backed them up on mag tape, and produced them at the Congressional hearings. Bye bye Ollie.
I knew this soon as we got email at work, 30 odd years ago. Use email for stuff everyone wants to see, such as how to fix a circuit board, how to design with our company's parts, how good our product is. Don't email gripes, bugs, opinions of customers, anything uncomplimentary to anyone.
Talk face to face, out of doors or in a secure location, or use a payphone, or a cell phone from a moving car, when you are talking about bad or sensitive stuff. Never by email. Cause email ain't secure.
Debbie and company should have known this. She is stepping down, which will help the Democratic party. The Democrats will do better when they don't have a chuckle head running it.
I knew this soon as we got email at work, 30 odd years ago. Use email for stuff everyone wants to see, such as how to fix a circuit board, how to design with our company's parts, how good our product is. Don't email gripes, bugs, opinions of customers, anything uncomplimentary to anyone.
Talk face to face, out of doors or in a secure location, or use a payphone, or a cell phone from a moving car, when you are talking about bad or sensitive stuff. Never by email. Cause email ain't secure.
Debbie and company should have known this. She is stepping down, which will help the Democratic party. The Democrats will do better when they don't have a chuckle head running it.
Fixing my laptop after installing Win 10
This wasn't so hard. Run the built in BIOS diagnostic. And now the Start Menu (pure software) works, and the power button (Hardware but with a lotta software messing it up) works. a
Some website explained the way to get into the BIOS diagnostics was to hold down the ESC key while you hit the power on button. And this appears to work even while the power on button isn't working. According to a website, the BIOS diagnostics have been standard in HP laptops since 2009. Which means a lot of 'em have it. On my HP laptop, a 2014 model, the BIOS diagnostics do start up, but they don't give you any messages on the screen except for one, They ask if you want to skip the disk test.
And the diagnostics reset a bunch of internal variables, which revived both the power on button and the start menu. This shows a crappy design on the power button. Any decent power button ought to assert the reset line to the processor and the entire motherboard. When reset is released, all micro processors jump to the starting address, (top of memory on some, bottom of memory on others) and start executing code. The purpose of reset on micro processors is to regain control and start running the program from the top, no matter how messed up the software is. That ain't happening on HP laptops, some kinda hardware and software kluge is breaking control of the reset line, and the machine fails to start when the button is pressed. Running the BIOS diagnostics fixes the software part of this kluge.
Good work HP engineers. I wonder what else you have screwed up.
Some website explained the way to get into the BIOS diagnostics was to hold down the ESC key while you hit the power on button. And this appears to work even while the power on button isn't working. According to a website, the BIOS diagnostics have been standard in HP laptops since 2009. Which means a lot of 'em have it. On my HP laptop, a 2014 model, the BIOS diagnostics do start up, but they don't give you any messages on the screen except for one, They ask if you want to skip the disk test.
And the diagnostics reset a bunch of internal variables, which revived both the power on button and the start menu. This shows a crappy design on the power button. Any decent power button ought to assert the reset line to the processor and the entire motherboard. When reset is released, all micro processors jump to the starting address, (top of memory on some, bottom of memory on others) and start executing code. The purpose of reset on micro processors is to regain control and start running the program from the top, no matter how messed up the software is. That ain't happening on HP laptops, some kinda hardware and software kluge is breaking control of the reset line, and the machine fails to start when the button is pressed. Running the BIOS diagnostics fixes the software part of this kluge.
Good work HP engineers. I wonder what else you have screwed up.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Win 10, no Start menu, Power on button broke
So after running a bit after my upgrade to Win 10 I find.
1. The advertised "start menu" , a replacement for the trusty "start menu" in Win XP, is nowhere to be found. Some web searching tells me that this is a common problem. A bunch of fixes were offered, I have tried a few of them with no luck. Without the new and improved start menu, the only way to reach the "settings" app is thru Cortana.
2. From the settings app I tried out Windows update. It trundled away downoloading a patch for office and then failed.
3. The power on button doesn't work, Press it to start Windows and nothing happens, I get a blank screen. Work around, power off the laptop. Unplug the charger and remove the battery. Count to ten. Replace the battery and the laptop powers up and runs windows.
4. Task Manager shows something called "OneDrive" is soaking up 300 Meg of Ram. Apparently OneDrive gives access to "the cloud" for file storage, after you spend money. Since I have 600Gig left on the hard drive, and I don't trust "the cloud" I'm thinking of removing One Drive.
1. The advertised "start menu" , a replacement for the trusty "start menu" in Win XP, is nowhere to be found. Some web searching tells me that this is a common problem. A bunch of fixes were offered, I have tried a few of them with no luck. Without the new and improved start menu, the only way to reach the "settings" app is thru Cortana.
2. From the settings app I tried out Windows update. It trundled away downoloading a patch for office and then failed.
3. The power on button doesn't work, Press it to start Windows and nothing happens, I get a blank screen. Work around, power off the laptop. Unplug the charger and remove the battery. Count to ten. Replace the battery and the laptop powers up and runs windows.
4. Task Manager shows something called "OneDrive" is soaking up 300 Meg of Ram. Apparently OneDrive gives access to "the cloud" for file storage, after you spend money. Since I have 600Gig left on the hard drive, and I don't trust "the cloud" I'm thinking of removing One Drive.
GM has a good quarter.
So sayeth the Wall St Journal. Sales of high margin SUV's and pickup trucks is way up. The article goes on to do some back patting, and noting GM's plan to buy into (buy up?) Lyft. And worries about Brexit messing up the European market more than it is. (GM's Euro operations have lost money for years and years).
No discussion of GM's bread and butter business, selling sedans in North America. Take a drive on Rte 128, half, maybe two thirds of the vehicles on the road are smallish four seat sedans. That's where the real volume is in the car business. Pickups and SUVs are a niche market, granted a large niche, but still a niche compared to small four passenger sedans, the family get-to-work and go-to-market car. GM is still a huge company, and it must compete in the big markets to survive. A behemoth needs a lot of feeding to stay alive. Pickups and SUVs don't have the volume to feed a GM. They must got for the big market, small sedans.
GM does have some product for this segment. First thing GM needs to do is find some better names for the vehicles. Low end ($14K) is called "Spark", a name that makes me think of blown fuses, electrical faults, crapped out VCR's. Not an auspicious name for a car. The next step up is called "Sonic". Everyone knows that Sonic is a computer game hedgehog. Both Spark and Sonic are very simular looking hatchbacks, with the road snuffling forward lean styling. Not very good looking.
Next step up is Cruze, a decent looking conventionally styled sedan for $16K. The name suggests only a certain sawed off movie actor.
GM needs a good car in the low end of the market. Say a MRSP of $10K, with distinctive styling so you can tell it's a Chevy when you see one on the road. Distinctive styling helps two ways. It attracts buyers, and it serves as a rolling advertisement for the car line if it looks like a Chevy rather than just another econobox. And find a decent name for it. Actually GM owns a bunch of decent car names that it doesn't use anymore. Corvair, Pontiac, GTO, Roadmaster, Oldsmobile, all come to mind. Surely GM can do better than "Spark".
No discussion of GM's bread and butter business, selling sedans in North America. Take a drive on Rte 128, half, maybe two thirds of the vehicles on the road are smallish four seat sedans. That's where the real volume is in the car business. Pickups and SUVs are a niche market, granted a large niche, but still a niche compared to small four passenger sedans, the family get-to-work and go-to-market car. GM is still a huge company, and it must compete in the big markets to survive. A behemoth needs a lot of feeding to stay alive. Pickups and SUVs don't have the volume to feed a GM. They must got for the big market, small sedans.
GM does have some product for this segment. First thing GM needs to do is find some better names for the vehicles. Low end ($14K) is called "Spark", a name that makes me think of blown fuses, electrical faults, crapped out VCR's. Not an auspicious name for a car. The next step up is called "Sonic". Everyone knows that Sonic is a computer game hedgehog. Both Spark and Sonic are very simular looking hatchbacks, with the road snuffling forward lean styling. Not very good looking.
Next step up is Cruze, a decent looking conventionally styled sedan for $16K. The name suggests only a certain sawed off movie actor.
GM needs a good car in the low end of the market. Say a MRSP of $10K, with distinctive styling so you can tell it's a Chevy when you see one on the road. Distinctive styling helps two ways. It attracts buyers, and it serves as a rolling advertisement for the car line if it looks like a Chevy rather than just another econobox. And find a decent name for it. Actually GM owns a bunch of decent car names that it doesn't use anymore. Corvair, Pontiac, GTO, Roadmaster, Oldsmobile, all come to mind. Surely GM can do better than "Spark".
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming
Bogger, this blog's host, supplies a "Stats" page showing the number of pages views, where the viewers come from, and hit counts on your most popular posts. Being a blogger of ordinary vanity, I check "Stats" every so often to see how popular my humble blog might be. For the last few years it's been jogging along at 50-100 pageviews a day. Yesterday, bingo, 350 pageviews. Today 800 page views. Wow, a ten X growth in viewership.
Where does all this traffic come from? Would you believe Russia? Today I have 528 page views from Russia, as opposed to only 39 from the United States. Either I have gone viral in Russia, or Blogger's Stats function has gone crazy. Hmm, I wonder. Actually, I think it's more likely that the Stats function has ceased to function properly, but who knows.
Where does all this traffic come from? Would you believe Russia? Today I have 528 page views from Russia, as opposed to only 39 from the United States. Either I have gone viral in Russia, or Blogger's Stats function has gone crazy. Hmm, I wonder. Actually, I think it's more likely that the Stats function has ceased to function properly, but who knows.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
HP Support Assistant.
It's one of those vaguely documented programs that comes on HP computers. Far as I can tell, it's the HP version of Windows Update. It keeps track of the versions of the HP code in your machine, device drivers mostly, and updates them when it feels like it. I don't believe the version on FlatBeast (which came from the store running Win 8.10 ever worked at all. I remember running it a few times and over the course of a year, I don't think it even did anything other than whine.
Win 10 took offense at HP Support Assistant and claimed it wouldn't work, it would give the computer rabies, and other offensive stuff. So after getting Win 10 squared away I googled on HP Support Assistant, just to see what others had to say about it. Best advice I found, was to just re install the damn thing from the HP website. The writer claimed this would fix all evils. And it did. 't
I ran it, and it wanted to replace seven or eight bits of software. So I let it have its head, and it took awhile, it wanted to reboot after three or four downloads, but it got to the end and it didn't break anything.
Suggestion to you HP owners out there. Should you find that HP Support Assistant ain't doing much, try downloading a fresh version from HP. This might get him going again.
Win 10 took offense at HP Support Assistant and claimed it wouldn't work, it would give the computer rabies, and other offensive stuff. So after getting Win 10 squared away I googled on HP Support Assistant, just to see what others had to say about it. Best advice I found, was to just re install the damn thing from the HP website. The writer claimed this would fix all evils. And it did. 't
I ran it, and it wanted to replace seven or eight bits of software. So I let it have its head, and it took awhile, it wanted to reboot after three or four downloads, but it got to the end and it didn't break anything.
Suggestion to you HP owners out there. Should you find that HP Support Assistant ain't doing much, try downloading a fresh version from HP. This might get him going again.
Rolling up the windows
My driveway lacks shade. On hot summer days the car heats up like a furnace. To combat this, I like to leave the windows down. We have maintained the social order up here and I don't have to worry about having the car stolen.
What I do worry about is the sudden rainstorm. Really messes up the upholstery when it gets rained on. Right now, should I hear a rumble of thunder, I must get up, go out to the car, with the key in hand, turn the ignition on, and hold the power window buttons down till all is rolled up.
I have a remote control for the car on my keychain. Wouldn't it be nice if said remote had a button to roll up all the windows. The remote already has a button to pop the trunk lid, and work the door locks. Surely one more button wouldn't be a cost breaker. The remote has enough range for me to pop the trunk lid sitting at my kitchen table, so I wouldn't even have to get out of my chair.
And while we are at it, how about a rain sensor that makes the windows roll up automatically at the first drop of rain?
What I do worry about is the sudden rainstorm. Really messes up the upholstery when it gets rained on. Right now, should I hear a rumble of thunder, I must get up, go out to the car, with the key in hand, turn the ignition on, and hold the power window buttons down till all is rolled up.
I have a remote control for the car on my keychain. Wouldn't it be nice if said remote had a button to roll up all the windows. The remote already has a button to pop the trunk lid, and work the door locks. Surely one more button wouldn't be a cost breaker. The remote has enough range for me to pop the trunk lid sitting at my kitchen table, so I wouldn't even have to get out of my chair.
And while we are at it, how about a rain sensor that makes the windows roll up automatically at the first drop of rain?
Friday, July 22, 2016
So I upgraded to Windows 10
And the laptop survived the experience. Like all things Micro$oft it's slow. Took 6 hours to install Win 10. Now that I am upgraded, the laptop seems a scosh more lively. My custom login screen survived. Word 2002 still works, Picassa still works. Haven't tried everything yet. Win 10 threw out CCleaner claiming incompatibility. It also raised a fuss about some nameless program, and and the HP auto update program. (It's an HP laptop).
I'd been holding off on Win 10, fearing it would be slower and fatter than Win 8.1. Experience tells me that each new Windows is fatter and slower than the old one. But, a couple of web searches failed to find anyone raving about Win 10 bugs, and Micro$oft started threatening to end the free updates next week. So I weakened and updated.
Lets hope I don't regret it.
I'd been holding off on Win 10, fearing it would be slower and fatter than Win 8.1. Experience tells me that each new Windows is fatter and slower than the old one. But, a couple of web searches failed to find anyone raving about Win 10 bugs, and Micro$oft started threatening to end the free updates next week. So I weakened and updated.
Lets hope I don't regret it.
Obama's "Justice" dept OK's giant beer merger
The US Justice dept signs off in a merger of Anheuser-Busch Inbev NV and SABMiller PLC. The merger is $108 billion and creates the larger beer company in the world. And it will pretty much eliminate competition in the US. After this merger, if you want to drink beer, you gotta buy it from the one beer company left. What ever they will call themselves. And they can charge anything they want, and we have to pay it, or do without beer.
A merger this big should never be approved. It is so big as to create a monopoly. And fleece consumers left and right. So much for Obama looking out for the people. He's looking out for crony capitalists.
A merger this big should never be approved. It is so big as to create a monopoly. And fleece consumers left and right. So much for Obama looking out for the people. He's looking out for crony capitalists.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Donald Trump's family do good things for him
The children all look really good on TV. Grownup, articulate, well spoken, properly dressed, well groomed, well educated, and solidly loyal to their father. Speaking as a veteran parent, a guy who can raise that many good children is a guy deserving of respect. And his wife Melania, showed great love and loyalty to Donald, in addition to being really hot. Donald must be a pretty decent husband to attract and keep a woman like that. Too bad they sabotaged her speech. Melania would make a helova lot better First Lady than snooty Michelle Obama.
Anyhow, family counts. Trump has some really good family.
Anyhow, family counts. Trump has some really good family.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
A place to prune the bureaucracy
A government-industry group is trying to reduce the accident rate in "general aviation" (Cessna, Pipers, Beechcraft and the like). General aviation is running at 1.5 fatal accidents per 100,000 flying hours, where as business aviation is running at 0.5 fatal accidents per 100,000 hours. So there is room for improvement.
There is general agreement that an angle-of-attack (AOA) indicator in the cockpit would do a lot of good. Angle of attack is basically how much the nose is pointed up. Point up too much and the wing stalls, airflow goes all squirrely, lift drops off drastically, the controls stop working, and the plane falls out of the sky like a stone. If this happens close to the ground, say while making an landing approach, the plane will hit the ground before the pilot can recover the aircraft.
And, such AOA indicators do exist. And not too expensive. You can buy one for about $1500. But, only for "experimental" aircraft. "Experimental" means home built, flown only by the builder, not legal to carry passengers. For "certified" aircraft, factory built planes, legal for anyone to fly or fly in, the same AOA system might cost $10000 to $25000. Same AOA equipment, the outrageous price hike is the cost of doing FAA paperwork, required on certified aircraft.
A Trump administration could do something about this government sponsored rip off.
There is general agreement that an angle-of-attack (AOA) indicator in the cockpit would do a lot of good. Angle of attack is basically how much the nose is pointed up. Point up too much and the wing stalls, airflow goes all squirrely, lift drops off drastically, the controls stop working, and the plane falls out of the sky like a stone. If this happens close to the ground, say while making an landing approach, the plane will hit the ground before the pilot can recover the aircraft.
And, such AOA indicators do exist. And not too expensive. You can buy one for about $1500. But, only for "experimental" aircraft. "Experimental" means home built, flown only by the builder, not legal to carry passengers. For "certified" aircraft, factory built planes, legal for anyone to fly or fly in, the same AOA system might cost $10000 to $25000. Same AOA equipment, the outrageous price hike is the cost of doing FAA paperwork, required on certified aircraft.
A Trump administration could do something about this government sponsored rip off.
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